


Going home

by LinneanSpora314



Series: Temporal Paradox [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Not Really Character Death, Time Travel, no reverse-flash reveal yet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-12
Updated: 2015-05-17
Packaged: 2018-03-30 06:56:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3927154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LinneanSpora314/pseuds/LinneanSpora314
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In an alternate universe, Doctor Wells could scarcely believe his luck as a mysterious grey-haired time traveller in a black cloak with rebellious red lining materialised in his timeline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Shortcuts

A lone, bespectacled figure occupied one corner of the deserted coffee shop. Alone, away from the prying eyes of the angry public, away from Caitlin Snow’s endearing but at times excessive “fussing”…Harrison Wells sat contemplatively in his wheelchair, pondering over the surreality of his own existence. 

The young waitress approached him with a steaming hot beverage on a tray. She placed it down gently on the table in front of him: “here you go, sir”, offering Harrison a broad and well-meaning smile. If ever she had wondered about why the seemingly well-to-do man in the wheelchair liked to frequent her particular coffee shop at this ungodly hour in the morning, not once has she made mention of it. 

“Thank you, Lucie.”

~~~~

Harrison wondered if to her, and others like her who were blissfully oblivious of his crimes, he had cut a particularly tragic figure. And today, as he remembered the good times past and future he allowed himself to wallow briefly in a misery and self-pity that could not be drowned out by the bitter aromas emanating from his coffee.

Beside him the aged windows rattled precariously as the elements outside vented their collective fury: no metahuman, no particle accelerator, no Clyde Mardon necessary, just the irrepressible will of the wind and the rain.

Suddenly the door flew wide open and the gust blew in a tall figure in a black magician’s cloak. With an umbrella under one arm and a phone plastered between left ear and shoulder he fought to shut the door behind him. 

“No Clara, don’t do that, don’t do that until I get back!” The man was pleading down the line, in a strong accent which Harrison could not quite place. 

“What? No no, I’m in Central City…!”

“Never mind where it is Clara, just do as you’re told!” He instructed - he voice assertive, but nonetheless affectionate. 

The peculiar way in which he enunciated “Clara” eventually convinced Harrison that he must in fact be Scottish. Hmmm, a foreigner from afar, that was rare, he thought… 

Very soon, he would be finding out just _how far_. 

Raising his mug slowly to his lips, Harrison observed calmly as the man, who was probably in his late fifties, swipe an old newspaper from a nearby desk. Squinting at the date printed on it in large black smudgy lettering, he informed this “Clara”`with an air of triumph:

“the year? like i said it’s close… it’s only 2014!”

Realising that he was now being observed, the older man scratched his headful of silvery hair and grinned guiltily in the direction of Harrison, who was the only other customer in the room. 

“Is that the bell? Well, call me back yeah? Okay, bye bye.” 

Muttering some obscenity under his breath as he ended the call, the stranger pocketed his phone and proceeded over to the counter. “Hi there, coffee please. Seven sugars.”

Behind the counter Lucie immediately set about fulfilling his request. If it did in fact strike her as rather eccentric why _on this earth_ anyone would wish to have that many sugars, she did not let it show. To her latest customer she would simply offer the same generic, well-meaning smile as she did Harrison a little while earlier. 

The grey-haired man retrieved his drink gleefully. Turning his head once more in Harrison’s direction, he bounded over uninvited to Harrison’s table and proceeded to make rapid conversation.

“Mind if I join you?” 

Harrison nodded courteously, noting with mild annoyance that he had in fact already sat himself down.

With a child-like enthusiasm the intruder thrust a hand in Harrison’s direction, and declared: “Harrison Wells I presume, nice to meet you, I’m the Doctor!”

~~~~

Aghast, Harrison had no time to formulate a response before a fresh wave of information hit him.

“Yes yes of course you are, the great Harrison Wells of the S.T.A.R labs particle accelerator - well I’ve come a rather long way and I need a quiet word with its creator, and a sterner word with its destroyer, and it seems I have them both right here!” 

The man who called himself the Doctor clearly had little time for exchanging pleasantries. 

Harrison leant forwards cautiously in his chair, matching his mysterious opponent with a steely stare. “Well then, so if I _am_ this mad man with the particle accelerator, what can i do for you?”

The Doctor let out a low fiendish chuckle. 

Covering one half of his face with his hand in purely theatrical fashion he whispered: “No no Harrison, you see I’m also a mad man, but with a _time machine_ … so the question we should really be asking ourselves is what I _can do for you sir_?” 

The devastating shock of realisation dawned on Harrison even faster than the rate at which he could metabolise alcohol. 

He stared at the swirling black liquid encased in the cup clasped in his trembling hand; all the emotions, the pain, the desire, the devotion, and the despair of the last fifteen years of life which he had given to the mindless, singular pursuit of his goal, had suddenly conspired to overwhelm him.

 _Fifteen years._ And has it really come down to this…? It took a metahuman effort to stop his voice from vibrating with fervent excitement. 

“Uhmm, okay.” He managed to utter at last. Adding after a pause, “then, i think you’d better come with me to my lab.” 

Manoeuvring his chair towards the exit Harrison gestured hopefully to the mysterious grey-haired time-traveller who had stood up to follow him out. “I presume you have a more efficient mode of transport?”

~~~~

The Eobard Thawne that was inhabiting Harrison Wells’ body will always remember the first time he was met with the timeless majesty of the Tardis: its uninspiring angular wooden exterior would betray little of the true dimensionality of its interiors.

Harrison breathed a deep sigh as he took in the dazzling colours of the Tardis control room, the hexagonal controls, and the other-worldly glyphs adorning the breathtaking architecture — arching its way from ceiling to floor. 

Gingerly, he parked his chair by the spiralling staircase. Here, in the safety of the Tardis, in all of space and time he had never felt so liberated. Eobard stood up and ascended the steps to take a closer look at the intricate rows of books housed on the shelves. 

Motioning to the recently vacated wheelchair, the wise old Timelord of Gallifrey raised one of his independently-cross eyebrows: “So… this all a lie too?” 

“Well… only partly.” Harrison smiled.


	2. Flash Rings and Sonic Screwdrivers

The polite and hyper-intelligent A.I. Gideon was not a little surprised to see a police box murmur hesitantly into being inside the relatively small confines of the Time Vault. Nevertheless, one must not forget one’s good manners.

“Good morning Dr Wells.” Came the customary greeting as two figures stepped out of the blue box, one familiar, the other less so. Tentatively the voice added: “and good morning to you sir, Doctor…?”

“Just, _the Doctor_.” Said the grey-haired stranger, breaking into a toothy Scottish grin. 

Moving over to the large patch of wall on which Gideon’s face was projected, the man who called himself the Doctor promptly set about prodding and poking it with a small handheld device that was emitting a rather unusual sound wave.

Upon analysing the frequency resonance, Gideon commented: “An interesting choice of weapon Doctor, if I may say so.” 

“Oh no no, this? this is not a weapon, this is a _screwdriver_ … it’s usually quite good at opening doors. Except wood, it’s fairly useless with wood…” Said the Doctor, rapidly trailing off, suddenly distracted by the peculiar hemispherical shapes dotted all over the walls. 

“Oooo, l love those round things… I used to have more round things in my Tardis too, not sure what happened to them…” He continued, momentarily lost in fond memories of long-forgotten Tardis decor that must have at one time or another served him well.

~~~~

“Tell me Doctor, what do you make of this.” Said Harrison, taking off his beloved flash ring and offering it to the Timelord.

The Doctor proceeded to sonic the flash ring. The tiny object seemed to possess disproportionately awesome power. There followed some seconds of fiddling, and sonic-ing, and yet more fiddling…

“You know what, this is very impressive. Very impressive indeed. But how do we get inside it?” Asked the Doctor, brandishing his trusty screwdriver.

“Ah.” Harrison nodded, raising his forefinger furtively to his lips. 

“Let me show you.”

He slid the golden ring back onto his finger, and summoned the coveted yellow-and-black suit. Proudly he would demonstrate to his guest how the suit could be stored inside the flash ring and recovered at will. 

“Wonderful!” Exclaimed the Doctor, running his fingers through the intricate folds and creases, perhaps only to convince himself it was real. “Though of course this smells of Time Lord technology…”

“Indeed?” Harrison was sceptical. 

His eyes however, were transfixed on the Doctor’s restless hands, fearful that he might dirty his precious body armour. 

_Trust me, our people created this universe and everything in it._ The Timelord thought to himself. But right now he had more pressing questions in mind. 

“So you put on this suit, and that allows you to run super fast, yes?” The Doctor was asking. “But that would require vast amounts of energy, which you must be siphoning from somewhere… hmmm.” He mused further: “but if you’re the sink, then there must be a source…” 

Harrison marvelled at the rapidity with which the Doctor posed and answered his own questions.

“Of course! This means that if Barry is the flash, then _you_ are his _reverse_. Like electron-positron pairs you can then feed off this awesome power from the ruptures in the spacetime continuum that his exertions would leave behind…”

At this point the Doctor was already dancing around the room and gesticulating with untempered enthusiasm. If the correct metaphor for attentiveness is “all ears”, then he was certainly “all hands”. 

“Yes.” Said Harrison, adding by way of assurance: 

“Otherwise known as the _speed force_.” 

Gideon the A.I. watched in cybernetic approximation to awe as the two men who between them had transcended temporal millennia and infinities of space, continued for some time through _heated_ discussions about whether the speed force was in violation of the second law of thermodynamics. 

_Pun totally intended._ Thought the A.I., content that she was at last mastering the art of human humour. 

~~~~

At Eobard’s request, the Doctor flew them in the Tardis centuries into the future, to a time of brilliant technological endeavours, to an era of unprecedented human progress, and to the time whence Eobard had come.

From the moment his future was handed to him on a plate (or rather inside a big blue box) by this mysterious time traveller, it had taken much longer than he had imagined to muster enough courage and resolve. Fifteen excruciating years in preparation for this eventuality, Eobard could not understand why he was not more pleased.

The lives that were lost and the lives that he had changed shall remain there — etched into the very fibre of his consciousness, etched into the burden of his past. 

Still though, fifteen years and a lifetime enough of planning later, here he was finally, finally homeward bound…

As he stepped out of the Tardis onto fields of blue tulips beneath a crimson sky, Eobard Thawne was home. And yet, there were no sparks of lightning, no red and yellow streaks darting across a collapsing sky, no tears or commotion, no build-up nor let-down of emotional trauma. 

_No running._

This, was not how he had foreseen this moment.


	3. Fast Enough

“What will you do?” Asked the Doctor, as they walked side by side through the City. 

Behind them stretched an expanse of blue and orange, and before them, the buildings and landmarks of human civilization rose valiantly from the ground to conquer the skies. Like mesoscopic flying insects, personalised hovercraft and capsules darted this way and that and at all altitudes, doing their best to avoid collisions. 

This world, Eobard’s world, glinted under the irradiance of a crimson sun. 

Reflected in the looming curvature of the concave shop window were myriad angular projections of light and shade. Bursting from that confusing cacophony of colour and form was the face of Harrison Wells. 

With a heavy heart, Eobard paused to peer at his reflection in the shop window. “Soon, this face, this face shall be no more…” 

Slowly his fingers traversed over his jawline, the indistinctive features, the lines, and the dimples. Turning to the Doctor, he implored: “…do you have any idea what that’s like!” 

With an ancient and far away look in his gaze, the 12th Doctor placed an arm around Eobard’s shoulder, and whispered gently:

“Come, you don’t have to do this alone.”

~~~~

They were waiting patiently in the Genetics wing of the hospital. Out of the corners of his eye he could perceive the migration of people - shapeless forms and nameless identities, that each would enter through the door and exit transformed into another. And he could not help but perceive the passage of time.

“Tell me Doctor, you of all people who can see time like none other… do you think… without destroying this timeline of course… that I can save someone?” Eobard asked, his penetrating blue eyes quivering with sorrow. “Tess?” 

“or Harrison?”

The Doctor shook his head.

For a second Eobard fell silent. 

Then he tried again: “What about Ronnie?”

Plucking a blue tulip from a nearby vase and regaling in its peculiar fragrance, the Doctor looked up into the face of Harrison Wells - a face that in an hour’s time shall be no more, and nodded.

~~~~

**Central City, five hours previously.**

Harrison Wells wheels into the S.T.A.R. labs carpark for the last time. In the background, a lanky, grey-haired figure leant against a police call box, arms folded, waiting for him.

The heavens had opened, and the raindrops poured forth thick and fast from the skies. For some moments, Harrison lingered beneath the weeping skies, looking up into the familiar hazy edifice that was the particle accelerator, _his_ particle accelerator, until the rain streaked across the lenses of his glasses and he could see no more. 

This was it, this was goodbye. 

When the Flash Team looked up from their work to see Harrison Wells enter the Cortex, he was soaked from head to toe. Water was trickling down the vertical cascades of gaps in his wheelchair, and directly onto the floor. 

Caitlin rushed into the next room to fetch a towel. When she came back Dr Wells had already positioned himself next to Cisco and Barry, who were working on a gadget for the flash suit. In his familiar authoritative voice he was explaining to the two of them what latest insights he had learnt from the lecture he had just attended. 

“… well Mr Allen,” she heard him say. “I think in the past I may have been a little negligent, perhaps you are already _fast enough_ , and what we should really be focusing on is not your speed, but your astonishing healing powers. The secret to the next medical revolution Barry, lies in the blood cursing through your body, in the codons of your genetic makeup…”

He paused with a smile, reaching forward to accept the towel Caitlin had just waved in front of his eyes. 

“Great job Cisco, as usual!” He said wheeling away, giving the startled boy genius a gentle pat on the back.

From this angle, he had looked so fragile. There was a notable sadness written into his eyes. Cailtin was concerned. As he sat there on his chair trying his best to rub the towel into his hair Caitlin could not help but notice the wet fabric of his trousers that was plastered onto the motionless outlines of his legs. It must be uncomfortable she thought, if only he could still feel. 

She moved over towards him cautiously, out of sight of the others. She placed her hand across his forehand in as unobtrusive a manner as she could envisage, and whispered in a low voice: “Dr Wells, I think you’re burning up a little, you should go home and take some rest…”

Harrison was not alarmed nor displeased by her gesture. He looked up at her radiant tresses and her large watery eyes, at his longest and most loyal employee — 

“Yes you’re right Cailtin, I… er, _home_ , that’s where I’ll be heading now.” 

Allowing himself a few seconds more, he lingered, turning to Caitlin with a twinkle in his eye: “And perhaps you should too.”

Caitlin trailed the gentle whirling of his chair as he turned out of the doorway, and was no more.

~~~~

**Central City, two days later.**

Hartley Rathaway awoke in the early hours with a start. Woken by the deafening silence - the agonising screams in his ears had ceased. Hartley lay motionless on his bed, immobilised by joy and trepidation, listening to the delicious sound of silence…

***

At the same time, elsewhere in the city, Ronnie Raymond broke into a burning sweat.

“Ronnie? What’s the matter?” Asked Caitlin, switching on the light beside the bed. 

“Oh nothing Cait, just a bad dream that’s all.” he said.

Caitlin assured him with a smile. _I love you Ronnie, what would I ever do without you_. Quickly she banished the thought from her head, and switched off the light. As the room was plunged once more into darkness, she relished in the warm sensation of Ronnie’s presence beside her. 

***

For two whole days, Harrison Wells has not been seen nor heard of. Caitlin, Ronnie and Cisco set out in the van to look for him - Barry was using a faster way to scour the neighbourhood. 

Over the intercom, Barry was giving the team new coordinates, his voice barely audible through the sobbing. 

Cisco stopped the van by the bank by the edge of the fast-flowing river. The angular outline of something black and metallic jutted out of the long grass - beside the empty wheelchair the Flash was crouched, sobbing into his scarlet costume. 

They rush over. Caitlin buries her head in Ronnie’s arms, letting go of all the emotion and tears. Ronnie holds her tightly, caressing her trembling form: “Shhhhh, it’s okay, it’s okay…”

Cisco stood by himself, staring wide-eyed into the distance, swaying in the breeze. His bottom lip quivered uncontrollably.

***

It would be years before they would find the body.

Until eventually, The Doctor paid a visit to the site of the original car crash...

 

~~~~

**The Thawne Household, centuries from now.**  


Eobard stood on the precipice of the family home, and watched solemnly as the blue police box flickered into non-existence. The Doctor did not like good-byes. 

His parting gift to Eobard were the words:

“ _We’re all stories in the end_ , as someone I used to be once said. Just make yours a good one eh?”

Adjusting his glasses - which by some curious irony of genetics he would be needing from now on, Eobard shut the door onto a setting sun. There, seeping across the infinite expanse of horizon, was a single streak of yellow.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, that was one version of events in answer to the question of "what happens if Eobard Thawne really made it back home".
> 
> Sorry if it is a little depressing... 
> 
> Let me know your thoughts/suggestions.


End file.
